User interfaces, such as graphical user interfaces (GUIs), for browsing electronic documents such as web pages and PDF documents are well known. Such known user interfaces enable the user to review an electronic document on a computer system such as a desktop computer device, mobile computer device and the like by scrolling through the document through user input.
The scrolling operation allows the user to review different segments of the document, such as the different pages. The scrolling operation is, for example, conducted by keystroke, mouse input or user touch input. The scrolling operation can also be conducted by touchless input, such as touchless user movements, eye-tracking and/or voice command; in case the computing system has such touchless functionality.
Irrespective of the scrolling operation, the known document review methods do not provide satisfactory document review experience upon reviewing “long documents”, e.g. documents with many pages, such as a book. Some long documents, such as a website, might not have several distinct pages. These are nevertheless still considered as long documents in the sense that the user has to scroll through many lines of text and/or media content (images, video etc) to review the entire document. Thus, in common for all “long documents” is the fact that the entire content of the document cannot be shown at once in a readable manner in a document display window. The user must scroll (browse) through the document in order to review the entire content thereof.
The term electronic document encompasses any type of electronic document data format, including but not limited to word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, maps, emails, websites etc. Typical examples of electronic documents data formats include Adobe PDF® documents, Microsoft WORD® documents, website in HTML or the like.
Known user interfaces provide the well-known feature of scrolling pages by providing “page up” and “page down” functionality, thereby enabling the user to quickly jump to the desired page. However, it is evident that in case of a long document, e.g. a document with two pages or more, this does not provide a user friendly solution for the user who has to switch between different passages of the document to obtain a deeper understanding of the teaching thereof.
The aforementioned limitations in the prior art have been addressed by a search functionality, which allows the user to search for particular terms within a document. Usually the user inputs the search term in a specifically foreseen search field and upon confirming the term, a search is conducted for the inputted search term within the document. The user is then directed to the text passage that includes the search term. Quick browsing between the different passages showing the search term is enabled by providing “next” and “previous” icons, thereby skipping those text passages that do not contain the relevant search term.
Thus, the user can skip several pages at once. This approach is, however, also not satisfactory. The user of this known method is distracted in his document review process due to the requirement of “jumping” to the different sections of the document. Therefore, the user might review the entire document quicker, but it does not necessarily enable the user to understand the teaching of the document in a more efficient manner. The frequent “jumping” between different text passages eventually negatively effects a user's concentration.
To overcome the above-mentioned limitations of the known search method, it has been suggested to display selectable thumbnail images of pages of the document in a side panel. This allows the user to directly jump to a particular page. This method of reviewing a document, however, has the same drawback as mentioned earlier, i.e. the user is distracted by the jumping action between different pages and/or sections of the document. This becomes even more critical on a mobile device which has a limited screen size and thus makes it even more difficult for the user to maintain a good overview of the content of the document.
It is evident that for the review of complex documents, for example legal documents such as design patents, utility models, (utility) patent applications, and/or patent specifications (collectively patent documents or patents) any distraction is detrimental for an efficient review of the document by the user. The same holds true for the review of any other legal document, such as a legal agreement or other complex documents, such as complex scientific publications, financial annual reports and the like.
Moreover, the review of long documents through the known methods usually has the user spend a significant amount of time using a computer system, thereby negatively influencing the energy consumption of the system. It is moreover not unusual that the dissatisfied user of the prior art methods and systems eventually prints out the document in order to review the document in paper form. This not only has a negative effect on the environment due to the increased consumption of paper, but also on the toner consumption of the printer, the wear of the printer etc. Thus, in providing an efficient electronic document review method, also such environmental technology problems could be mitigated.